The present invention generally relates to toys, and, more particularly, to a toys that may interact with one another so as to provide the appearance of carrying on a conversation.
In today""s world of toys, interaction is vastly limited to simple movements and sentences are often repetitive, fixed and involve very little (if any) interaction with other toys. Conventional toys that incorporate speech function in one of the following manners: sound recognition, light recognition, infrared identification, and strict playback. These options allow for xe2x80x98linear patternedxe2x80x99 speech which follows a specific script that is activated by a stimulus (i.e. drawstring, push-button, switch, etc.) This patterned speech is both repetitive and quickly tiresome for inventive and imaginary children who are fascinated by interactivity and peculiarity.
A demand therefore exists for technology that makes it possible for toys to interact with each other in witty, smart, interesting and conversationally diverse ways. Such toys would not be bound by a few short sentences, a lack of context or the same monotonic dialogue.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a toy that largely eliminates the disadvantages relative to conventional speech-related toys and electronic games by providing a toy fully capable of intelligent asynchronous speech with other toys.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a toy that is uninhibited with restrictions such as wires, platforms, power supplies, etc. and fully durable to withstand the daily duress inflicted by even the most adventurous of children.
These and other objects of the invention will be apparent from the remaining portion of the specification.
The present invention is directed to toys that may interact so as to present the appearance of the toys conversing. The toys feature an architecture including a physical layer, a messenger layer and an application layer. The physical layer communicates with the application layer through the messenger layer. The physical layer receives and transmits messages from and to compatible toys through a physical medium. The physical layer may be an infrared transceiver, radio transceiver or any other type of wireless communications. The messenger layer receives and verifies messages from the physical layer and passes verified messages to the application layer. The messenger layer also receives messages from the application layer and passes the messages from the application layer to the physical layer for transmission. The application and messenger layers may be implemented on micro-controllers or an application-specific integrated chip.
The application layer features a forest of decision graphs, where each of the decision graphs corresponds to a conversation. Each of the decision graphs includes a number of nodes with at least some of the nodes corresponding to a passage of the conversation of the decision graph. Each of the nodes includes one or more contexts with each of the contexts corresponding to an edge leading to one or more child nodes. As a result, the selection of the context directs progression of the conversation between the toys. The application layer also includes a participants list that lists the toys participating in the conversation and a conversation manager. The participants list is utilized in selecting the conversation/decision graph and may be utilized in selecting the context. The conversation manager broadcasts updates regarding the participants list and the identification number of the node of the current conversation/decision graph.
The messenger layer includes a receiver component and a transmitter component. When a message is received by the receiver component, the transmitter component passes a message acknowledgement (MSG_ACK) containing a copy of at least a portion of the message to the physical layer for transmission to an originating toy that sent the message. The messenger layer passes the message to the application layer upon receipt of an acknowledgement acknowledgement (ACK_ACK) from the originating toy in response to the transmission of the message acknowledgement (MSG_ACK) indicating that the originating toy has verified proper receipt of the message by the receiving toy.
For a more complete understanding of the nature and scope of the invention, reference may now be had to the following detailed description of embodiments thereof taken in conjunction with the appended claims and accompanying drawings.